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Japanese disaster films highlight victims' stories

Published on NewsOK
Modified: February 27, 2013 at 7:29 pm •
Published: February 27, 2013

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TOKYO (AP) — The unnerving clicks of dosimeters are constant as people wearing white protective gear quickly visit the radiated no-go zones of decayed farms and empty storefronts. Evacuees huddle on blankets on gymnasium floors, waiting futilely for word of compensation and relocation.

In this image made from a scene from the film “Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape" released by Yojyu Matsubayashi, Kyoko Tanaka, a city council member of Minami Soma, patrols in the deserted town after evacuation of the residents, on April 3, 2011. Japanese film director Matsubayashi took a more standard documentary approach for his “Fukushima: Memories of the Lost Landscape,” interviewing people who were displaced in the Fukushima town of Minami Soma. He followed them into temporary shelters in cluttered gymnasiums and accompanied their harried visits to abandoned homes with the gentle patience of a video-journalist. The March 2011 catastrophe in Japan has set off a flurry of independent films telling the stories of regular people who became overnight victims, stories the creators feel are being ignored by mainstream media and often silenced by the authorities. (AP Photo/Yojyu Matsubayashi) MANDATORY CREDIT, EDITORIAL USE ONLY

Such scenes fill the flurry of independent films inspired by Japan's March 2011 catastrophe that tell stories of regular people who became overnight victims — stories the creators feel are being ignored by mainstream media and often silenced by the authorities.

Nearly two years after the quake and tsunami disaster, the films are an attempt by the creative minds of Japan's movie industry not only to confront the horrors of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl, but also to empower and serve as a legacy for the victims by telling their stories for international audiences.

The impact these films have on the global and Japanese audiences could perhaps even help change Japan, the directors say.

What's striking is that many of the works convey a prevailing message: The political, scientific and regulatory establishment isn't telling the whole truth about the nuclear disaster. And much of the public had been in the past ignorant and uncaring about Fukushima.

And so the films were needed, the auteurs say. The people leading Japan were too evasive about the true consequences of the multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant — minimizing people's suffering, playing down health risks and shrugging off accountability for past go-go pro-nuclear government policies.

"Japan's response is ambiguous and irresponsible. But, meanwhile, time is passing," said Atsushi Funahashi, director of "Nuclear Nation," which documents the story of the residents of Futaba, Fukushima, the town where the crippled nuclear plant is located.

The entire town became a no-go zone — contaminated by radiation in the air, water and ground after the tsunami destroyed the plant's cooling systems, causing meltdowns in three reactors. Decommissioning the reactors is expected to take decades.

Of all Fukushima communities forced to evacuate, Futaba chose the farthest spot from the nuclear plant — an abandoned high school in Saitama prefecture, near Tokyo. That choice Funahashi feels highlights a keen awareness of the dangers of radiation and distrust of officials as the town had been repeatedly told the plant was safe.

The outburst of post-disaster filmmaking includes Americans living in or visiting Japan, such as "Surviving Japan," by Christopher Noland, "Pray for Japan," by Stuart Levy, and "In the Grey Zone" and "A2" by Ian Thomas Ash.

"The Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom," by Lucy Walker, a Briton, was nominated for the 2012 Academy Award for short documentaries.

Both Levy and Noland volunteered in the disaster areas. Ash's documentaries focus on the plight of the children who continue to live near the nuclear plant and the frightened mothers who suspect the medical authorities are lying about the safety of radiation.

"I believe it is time for Japanese citizens to not just rebuild but reinvent their country with new leadership," said Noland, who like many others worries about the children. "I want the people of Japan to know I stand with them."

Funahashi's "Nuclear Nation," shown at film festivals including Berlin, Seoul and Edinburgh, Scotland, intentionally played out its scenes in real time to communicate the helplessness of the days slipping away for displaced people. Camera close-ups show the cold lunches in boxes being handed out, day by day.

Funahashi is outraged that, so many months later, the Japanese government has yet to properly compensate the 160,000 people who had to leave their homes near Fukushima Dai-ichi. The government has set up tiny temporary housing and has doled out aid calculated to approximate the minimum wage.

In one moving scene in "Nuclear Nation," one of the displaced residents, Masayoshi Watanabe, lights up a cigarette in a car and talks directly into the camera, strangely more movie-like than any Hollywood actor.

"Our town is gone. It's just land," he says pensively.

The movie started with 1,400 people in the school building, but that has dwindled lately to about 100. Funahashi is determined to keep filming until the last person leaves.